


spring holds you.

by ameriboo



Category: Pocket Monsters | Pokemon (Anime), Pocket Monsters | Pokemon - All Media Types
Genre: Drama & Romance, Drinking, F/F, Ferris Wheels, Friendship, Heartache, Kissing, Lost Love, Love, One Shot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-21
Updated: 2020-10-21
Packaged: 2021-03-09 00:34:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,063
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27135307
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ameriboo/pseuds/ameriboo
Summary: Zoey lost a part of her heart in the snow.
Relationships: Hikari | Dawn/Nozomi | Zoey, past Nozomi | Zoey/Suzuna | Candice
Comments: 8
Kudos: 19





	spring holds you.

**Author's Note:**

> disclaimer: i don't own anything. 
> 
> HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO MY LOVELY NEBLI! i love you so much girl and i wanted to gift you a little something with our girls in it. i wish you the most amazing day full of good food and good times. thank you for blessing all of us with your existence and for your kind heart.

> **love is spring.**

Candice is winter.

To Zoey, it wasn't that Candice was cold or harsh. Candice was the brightest beacon of all Snowpoint City. Locals knew her by name, the schoolgirl who climbed trees and constantly asked store clerks for old magazines for her to cut up and press into her unfinished fashion journals. Everyone was a friend to Candice, but Zoey only had one best friend and it was sweet Candice who treated hugs as essential for daily life and smiles like a badge of honor. As children, their differences stark, Zoey found it hard to smile all the time and to hug everyone. But she had Candice and the older girl self-proclaimed that she was the best person in the world to do such an important job.

When Zoey asked what Candice meant by _job_ , ruby hair being pulled into tiny tedious braids by her, the amber-eyed girl held her close and whispered, "Being your person, of course."

Candice taught Zoey friendship. She taught her love. What it meant to hold someone close to your heart, share your dreams, and be there for when the blizzard hits and stunts you. Candice was Zoey's winter: grabbing on to each other's mitten hands, the taste of mint, the purity of freshly fallen snow, sharing dark hot chocolate, snuffling sick in bed as the other tells you stories, and the way the lungs breathed in the cold mountain air.

Winter is Zoey's comfort. Her home is where ice shines, mountains protect, and the snow is decorated with the diamond dust girl's footprints.

. . .

Candice didn't call. Candice didn't email. Candice didn't even send a letter.

"She's gone," they tell her.

"Zoey, have you heard from her?" They prod.

"Miss Candice," over and over her students cry out, missing their teacher.

"She must've wanted more," Zoey's mom decides, twirling honey into her mug of black tea. "The pressure of a city relying on you for so much, with barely any challengers coming through. Well, you could never say the girl never went after her dreams."

Zoey leaves her tea at the table. It's lukewarm by the time Zoey runs outside and throws her fists against a giant pine, snow flurries cascading down. Tilting her head up, fully knowing she won't be up there calling Zoey's name, she still tries to find her.

Zoey tries.

. . .

Zoey doesn't go home anymore.

. . .

Zoey is eighteen when she drinks for the first time. It's an afterparty for the Nimbasa Contest. A Hoennian named Harley and his wigglytuff won. The Unovan Contest Circuit was new, refreshing but still, it was in the rookie stage of development. And Zoey quickly finds out, Nimbasa is a party city with multiple outdoor bars, clubs, and lounges, and the afterparty is taken to from the contest hall to the neon-lit streets.

One cranberry vodka soda wouldn't hurt but the sweet jeweled toned drink multiplied to several. Then Ursula, flashing her golden credit card around, orders a round of tequila shots for everyone that made it to the second round because if she was going to be doing something nice, a little cruelty to the "losers" had to be sprinkled in.

Tequila shots and lime slices are put into her hands and Zoey shoots it down with little hesitation, flinching at the fire that pulsed in her throat. It stings the cut she has on her tongue.

The crisp breeze felt nice on her skin but the overwhelming salty air that circulates the port city somehow makes Zoey's nausea worsen. The top coordinator swallows the salvia heavy in her mouth, lips chapped and feet beginning to throb. Her face hot, her mood shifting from amused by Kenny's attempt at karaoke to crestfallen when her mind reels her back to fixating on snowflakes. A bubblegum pop song shuffles in on the outside bar sound system, and she considers it her cue to leave.

Casting her goodbyes, despite Kenny's persistence that the night was still young, she waves everyone off and beelines out of view to get lost on the crowded sidewalk.

Her phone vibrates in her coat pocket but she ignores it, running her hands through her hair as she tried to find the street that led to her hotel. It rings again. And again.

Whipping it out of her coat, she unlocks it without even seeing the caller ID and screams, "Yes?!"

"Turn around!" The voice screams and matches her energy.

Blinking, Zoey's heart swells, and turns around to find Dawn, phone in hand, huffing a few yards away from her. She was huffing, as if she had been running for blocks, her dark hair shining under the street lights.

"You didn't hear me calling your name?" Dawn asks over the phone, cobalt blue eyes fluttering.

Zoey's mind short circuits; her heart stammering. "I….didn't…"

She hears Dawn's tongue click. Her doll-like expression shifts from confusion to a radiance, dropping her phone into her jacket and walking towards Zoey.

"You left without saying goodbye?"

"I did say goodbye?"

Dawn snorts, eyes shut and lashes long, "Not to me you didn't."

Zoey's shoulders drop and the feeling of defeat curls in her stomach. "I'm sorry," she responds. "I just had to get out of there."

An empathetic smile cracks over Dawn's face as she puts a comforting hand on Zoey's back, rubbing it back and forth. "Are you okay now?"

Zoey sighs because there was never any use in acting around Dawn. Dawn whose clear eyes see through people like sword slices skin. Naivety in the cruelty of life was one thing, as Dawn was ever the optimist, but her sense of people and their emotions was a strong suit. Zoey doesn't even think Dawn realizes her influence on others.

Zoey didn't have to pretend with Dawn. Dawn sees through Zoey.

"Better," she admits finally, relishing in the reassuring touch.

"Be glad you left," she begins as they continue walking, "Ursula ordered a second round of Galar Car Bombs. Galarian cream and whiskey dropped into some dark beer." A giggle. "I left right after it curdled in Kenny's mouth."

"That's rancid," she says, flatly.

Bubbly laughter falls out of Dawn's mouth, her cheeks tinged pink, and her movements playful. She seemed tipsy, bumping her shoulder against Zoey's as she partially skipped with each step. Lightness radiates in Dawn while Zoey on the other hand felt like a shadow, tension in her body soothing away somehow as Dawn spoke more and more about how exciting Nimbasa was. Her gratefulness that they've come together again to fight for a new Grand Festival title. And that it was in being held in such an exciting place like Unova. Her hands clapping in excitement.

Zoey, distracted by both the city neon and Dawn's brightness, doesn't catch Dawn's joyful shout. "Look," Dawn repeats, "it's the Ferris wheel!"

Nimbasa's acclaimed and beloved Ferris wheel, still operating, is before them. Before she could even blink, Dawn's hand clasps around Zoey's and asks, "Do you want to go?"

Zoey was ready for bed, prepared to wash away her thoughts, and to pop an ibuprofen. She doesn't even pick up that she nodded yes before she was being whisked away. But she didn't account for Dawn's hand, soft and warm, gripping onto hers, leading her towards magical fairy lights and the smell of fried dough in the air, looking back at her beaming.

For a split, painful second, Dawn looks like she is made of diamond dust but then, the image disappears, and Zoey feels a hole the shape of her old friend in her heart shrink a little less.

. . .

"It's beautiful," Dawn sings, her voice airy while peaking down from the window at the bustling city and its people. Zoey is across from her, looking at Dawn as she, glowing and flushed, looked out to the world.

"Yeah," is all Zoey manages, ruby eyes blinking. Her head is dizzy, her body loose, and mouth dry. Dawn looks back, clipping her hair behind her ear. "Beautiful."

Their eyes snap, cobalt meets ruby, catching each other. Zoey's eyes then clench, listening to the soft buzzing. Hazy, electric carnival music. Zoey hears metal clang, opening her eyes to see Dawn lean closer, carefully rising and taking the seat beside her.

Zoey jolts, a startled look crossing her face before easing into a dazed heartbreaking smile. "I'm sorry, I just," She sighs, tears beginning to form. Zoey's chest shakes with something heavy and she looks at Dawn helplessly. "I just don't know how to…be."

Dawn leans her forehead against hers, and tells her in a soft voice, "You don't have to be anything, for anyone."

She shudders, her lips pressing together tight, keeping a sob from breaking through.

"I hate her."

Dawn's hand brushes Zoey's hair in soothing strokes. "No, you don't."

Her shoulders heave.

The sob breaks through and something in Zoey cracks. "I miss her."

Dawn's hand presses against Zoey's cheek.

"I know."

Love embodied in a single wipe of her tears finds Zoey trembling at the touch, her heart coming undone. Only Dawn has held Zoey like this in a long time. Not since Candice. She hasn't accepted anything since Candice.

Love cradles Zoey's pain in the palm of her hand and they sit there on cold metal seats, feeling the Ferris wheel cart move in a cyclical motion. Intimacy a soft burn that overwhelmed her more than the tequila.

Love lifts herself back, eyes dazed and pupils grand, and Zoey doesn't know how she can accept her for who she is, the mess she has become. Zoey wonders what her younger self would say if she saw her now. _"You're an idiot,"_ she pictures her ten-year-old self saying flatly with steel confidence, adjusting her favorite sunglasses before turning her heel away.

Love lets Zoey breathe; Love lets Zoey crash her lips against hers, tear-stained cheek grazing across warm skin, dipping into each other gently then with a tinge of madness, unable to let go.

. . .

Candice was winter.

She is distant, gone but unforgettable. Like a winter night, Zoey cannot stay in her too long without experiencing everything freeze over, her chest heaving as the air in her lungs got sucked out by something unforgivable chilling. There are days that Zoey can look at a snow globe, think of her, and smile. It has become bittersweet, the memory of her first love and the girls they used to be.

Candice was her winter.

But Dawn is spring.

Dull earth rises and blooms in color, embracing life being reborn. The seed was planted long ago, their connection as rivals but fated friends. She was unexpected but Zoey grabbed the hairbrush, listened, and invited her in. It was just a simple pep talk to the new girl in her pretty pink dress and silk ribbons, she didn't know what it would blossom into. Where would her journey, her wins be without Dawn? Zoey discovered countless things through her journey because of her influence. Every new beginning Zoey had, Dawn had been there, smiling at her anticipating her next move as if Zoey wouldn't follow her through hell and back just to step into the field one more time.

Dawn saw what winter did to Zoey. How quickly Zoey, who always knew herself and what to do, became someone grasping on straws to find the parts of her taken by the snowstorm. Dawn, ears opened and patient, and came to her. Listened, held, and took care of her.

She didn't pity Zoey or pry into what she and Candice were. She just tried to be there, even if there were lapses between them and moments that Zoey pushed her away. If anything were ever true in this wicked world, it's that Dawn will try. Like weeds sprouting through concrete, Dawn will try. From the Ferris wheel to apologies to slowly becoming more than just friends, Dawn tries, and so does Zoey.

Through new beginnings across the Unovan valleys and cities, Zoey's beautiful spring: laying down in a meadow, fresh berry juice dripping down the sides of the mouth, flower petals tickling the skin, and lavender stuffed into the pillowcase by the one who loves you.

Spring heals Zoey. Trees sway, fields of tall grass sing, and the trains may be delayed but there is a girl made of light beside her holding her hand along the way.

. . .

**Author's Note:**

> notes: this is a gift fic, trash my writing don't trash the ship. love yall. follow nebli on twitter wink wink


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